A team of four students from St. Ignatius Catholic School won the eighth annual Saxon Investment Club Challenge for local high school and college students.

Chezarie Henry, Hannah Wood, Grace Christian-Welcome and Tyrese Javon Ebanks operated under the trading name Harambe’s Trust Fund, achieving the highest net value of investments over the period of the challenge, from October 2016 to March 2017.

According to a press release, they received the top cash prize at an awards ceremony on April 5, doing better with their investments than 25 other groups in the six-month extracurricular program.

The program offers students practical insights into investing, the stock market, trends and starting and running a business.

Another St. Ignatius team, Xfinity, comprised of students Carolyn Carter and Marylee Brown, earned second place.

Third place went to Cayman Prep and High School team The Investors, comprised of Allyssa Connor, Rosita Ritch and Derricka Neysmith.

Students operated with demo accounts set up by OneTRADEx, in which they simulated real-life trades using an initial sum of $100,000 to invest. They were supervised by teachers who monitored their learning and progress.

Saxon CEO Brian Williams congratulated the students on their achievement and thanked the teachers who provided guidance.

“This year, we have again been encouraged by the growth of the program, with 26 groups of enthusiastic students participating,” he said.

“The performances of the winning teams and many others demonstrate that they have learnt a lot about money, investing and running a business over these past six months. That is what the Investment Club Challenge is all about, and we at Saxon are grateful to the schools, teachers, sponsors and the Ministry of Education for their ongoing support.”

St. Ignatius teacher Dominique Chenier, who was also the adviser to her school’s participants, noted that the challenge gave students the opportunity to not only apply some of the knowledge they learned in their business studies or accounting lessons, but to also acquire new knowledge related to investing on the stock market. She said they also enjoyed using a true-to-life trading platform, thanks to OneTRADEx’s support of the competition.

“We are thrilled that two of our teams won first and second place,” she said.

“The students look forward to taking part in this competition again next year and are very grateful to Saxon for continuing to sponsor this excellent learning opportunity.”